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Re: Business copy and open files

 
Luis_135
Advisor

Business copy and open files

Can a snapclone or snapshot guarantee the integrity of open files? or Do i need backup software with open files agent anyway?

Can i place a sanpshot into a different diskgroup? I have heard tha this is only possible with snapclones? Is it true?
4 REPLIES 4
Ivan Ferreira
Honored Contributor

Re: Business copy and open files

Snapshots cannot be on different disk groups, snapclones can.

The BC does not know about the file system or file status. To ensure data integrity, you must freeze the access to your data. If your backup software handles open files and can be integrated with BC, it should be able to warranty the data integrity.
Por que hacerlo dificil si es posible hacerlo facil? - Why do it the hard way, when you can do it the easy way?
Alzhy
Honored Contributor

Re: Business copy and open files

Luis.

Peace.

In-array snapshot/clone solutions like BC works independently of the "filesystem" on top. So to ensure your "snapshots/clones" are fine and dandy - your process should include ensuring that your filesystem and processes using it (i.e. Oracle DB) are in a state that ensures no files are open or being changed.

However, since it is not a guarantee that you won't have open files at the time of the snapsot/clone/split -- the filesystem software has intelligence to take care of the inconsistencies -- that is why, on remount of the filesystems on your snapshot/clone sets -- you or the process behind are always mandated to do a filesystems check - which should be fast since we always use a journalling filesystems these days -- aka. VxFS.

Cheers.
Hakuna Matata.
Sameer_Nirmal
Honored Contributor

Re: Business copy and open files

Hi Luis,

I presume BC EVA here.

Business copy EVA doesn't directly interact with file or filesystem. The BCV generation is done at storage level where storage data blocks (storage sets) comes into the picture.
BC EVA make a consisitent copy of those storage blocks. In order to make consistent copy, it freezes a volume , make a copy and release (thaw) it. Hence BC EVA does have dependancy, interaction and support with volume managers e.g. LVM on HPUX , VXVM on Solaris. So whatever the state of a open file data at the time of freeze, it would be retained in BCV.

With latest version of BC EVA and XCS software , snapshots could be also be placed in a different disk group like snapclones.
Refer the link
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/bizcopyeva/index.html


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Basil Vizgin
Honored Contributor

Re: Business copy and open files

Sameer, you are wrong.
As from quickspec:
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EVA allows for increased flexibility and improved capacity utilization by supporting changing the Vraid type with Cross Vraid Snapshot and Snapclone, within the same disk group and Cross Vraid Snapclone across disk groups. Cross Vraid Snapclone also supports changing the Vraid type when Snapcloning from a high performance disk group to a FATA disk group.
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Also from AdminGuide:
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A snapshot is created in the same disk group as the source virtual disk.
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Luis, new add-on to BC, T4390A Replication Solutions Manager EVA Application Integration LTU allows you to suspend Oracle database prior to snapshot. Also you can flush cache and suspend MS SQL server prior to snapshot with HP DButil (automatically with BC jobs).
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18964&prodSeriesId=315919&prodNameId=1833639&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=co-30988-1